In the name of Jesus, we will remember
We will remember
Great God of everlasting peace and eternal justice,
we live in a world where memories are short, and history is rewritten. As one
generation gives way to the next, the lessons of the past are forgotten, and the
spirals of violence are allowed to begin once again.
We look around us at the world we live in, and we
see posturing and protectionism, we see poverty and prosperity, we see power and
propaganda, but we do not see peace. All too easily our world turns to war as
the solution to problems, and we forget that armed conflict is never a final solution,
and that war is always counter-productive to the cause of peace.
So in our world of hatred and division we turn to
you, the great eternal force of love that transcends generations, and we ask
that you will help us to remember. Help us to speak truths of peace and justice
in our time, as we tell your story of forgiveness - to those who have never
heard it, and to those who have wilfully forgotten it.
In the name of Jesus, we will remember
We will remember
On this day of remembering, we turn to the cross: the
great symbol of violence, oppression, and execution which lies at the heart of
our commitment to peace. May we rediscover what it means to live lives in the
light of the cross as the end of violence. May we rediscover in your story the
eternal truth that all conflict ultimately ends in the victimisation and death of
the innocent.
Forgive us when we are tempted to believe that ‘fighting
for peace’ is anything other than a deception to justify violence. Help us to
find courage to speak into being your alternative story, that the only true
path to peace lies through forgiveness and reconciliation.
And in a world where death so often seems to get
the final word, we ask that you will awaken us to the hope of resurrection,
where death is itself defeated, and peace and justice are fulfilled. May we
never forget the hope that lies at the heart of your story.
In the name of Jesus, we will remember
We will remember
So with hope set before us, and your eternal perspective
behind us, we come now to pray for the transformation of our world. In a world
of violence, we dare to speak our conviction that it does not have to be this
way. And as we speak into being your alternative world of peace and justice, we
commit ourselves to living out the truth of that conviction, until it is true
in our world.
So we pray for all those who, this day, are
fighting:
· We pray for all those who will kill another human
being in war because they believe that it is the right thing to do.
· We pray for those who will kill another in war because
they believe that they have no choice.
· We pray for those who will kill another because it
is the only way they know they are alive.
For all those who will kill, we pray forgiveness
and mercy. May they discover in their lives the truth spoken from the cross,
that forgiveness is offered even to those who kill the innocent.
‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do.’
We pray for all those who are
victims of war:
· We pray for the civilians of Mosul and Aleppo, and for those affected by
the bomb in Pakistan.
· We pray for refugees driven from their homes to seek a new life
elsewhere in Europe.
· We pray for wounded soldiers, discharged by the country they fought for
and now reliant on charity to build a new life.
For all those who have been
victimised by war, may they discover in their lives the solidarity of the
cross, and may they come to know the path to resurrection that lies through
death.
‘Blessed are those who
mourn, for they shall be comforted.’
We pray for politicians and
power-brokers, for peace-makers and peace-keepers. We pray for prime ministers
and presidents; may they remember all those who they have been elected to
represent. May they remember the lessons of the past, and the price paid by so
many in the service of ideologies of violence. May they come to the conviction
that it doesn’t have to be this way.
And finally we pray for
ourselves. May we learn what it means to live in peace. May we model in our own
lives your way of forgiveness and reconciliation. From the way we are with our
loved ones, to the way are at work, to the way we vote; may we always live in
peace. Not for our sake, or for the sake of others, but for your sake, as we
remember the cross, and live its truth into being in our world.
In the name of Jesus, we will remember
We will remember
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